Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jupiter/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 06:17, 31 January 2007.

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Jupiter

This article was the winner of the AID of 27 December 2006. Since then, the article almost instantly became a good article, and is probably ready for featured article status. Diez2 16:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The arrangement of the pictures gets a bit cluttered towards the second half, with all of the pictures lined up down the right side. (Usually articles look better if they alternate sides.) There are also a few citation needed tags that need to be taken care of. MLilburne 17:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I fixed the positioning of the images so they will alternate. Diez2 18:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose There are external jumps in the infobox, these should be converted to references. There are also a few citations need tags and an uncited section tag, these need to be fixed. Jay32183 19:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • In addition, there is an overview section. The lead should summarize the article, there should not be another overall summary in the body. See Venus for how an article on a planet should be sectioned. Jay32183 22:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - Many of the refs need attention, as well. Some are missing the author, and another leads to a subscription form at Science magazine, and not the article. At least one needs an ISBN number. They need to be consistent in styling, as well. Some have the article tiotle first, others have the author listed first. There were other ref problems that I saw, but lost the info during an edit conflict. Jeffpw 19:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• OBJECTION 'STRENUOUSLY OBJECT (see below) For way too many reasons. This article is plainly not ready for FAC.
  • Images. Too much jarring back and forth between left right left right. unaesthetic and unbalanced. Also, remove the size/pixel parameters for thumbnail images as they do not accomoadate user preferences. Also, the infobox and image stacking issues are causing huge white spaces in sections (like Overview) when the article is viewed in every browser with the wide range of resolution and other settings that I've tried.
    • Comment I couldn't disagree more with the left and right statement. I like the format of images on both sides of an article. Right aligning all images on one side either a)limits the numbers of images able to be inserted or b)leads to even more huge ugly blank gaps in the article. Quadzilla99 01:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I have no problem with alternating left and right orientation, but this jars back and forth too much, and makes the entire article unbalanced especially with how it causes numerous white space problems. Also, if you're going to comment, do so without splitting up someone else's comments. —ExplorerCDT 01:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Just thought of something, the problems caused by excess images could be alleviated by putting the images in a gallery format toward the bottom of the article. —ExplorerCDT 13:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Citations. There are several {{citation needed}} and {{unreferenced}} tags. This is thoroughly unacceptable for an FAC. Need to settle on one consistent style. Also, magazines/journals have ISSN numbers (the periodical equivalent of an ISBN number) that should be included.
  • Writing and Comprehensiveness Far from meeting the criteria, IMHO. The writing does not captivate me the way a science article should. It's not compelling or brilliant prose as required by criteria 1(a) It also does not go into needed detail and elaboration. Several short paragraphs (sections) that just seem to make a minimal effort at getting to be three sentences without adding much-desired substance. Example (from Exploration of Jupiter): Voyager 1 flew by in March 1979 followed by Voyager 2 in July of the same year. The Voyagers vastly improved the understanding of the Galilean moons and discovered Jupiter's rings. They also took the first close up images of the planet's atmosphere.. HOW? What did we learn? What did the images show? How did scientific knowledge be expanded by this mission? This sort of scrutiny and elaboration is lacking throughout the entire article...short, cursory, almost perfunctory discussions where much more is expected. Regarding the moons....why the classifications? Why are the classification categories unique? similar? different? Also, Trojan asteroids should be combined in the "natural satellite" section. Lastly, on this point...why would we call this section superfluously "natural satellites" when I don't think science has found an single one that could be called "unnatural".
  • Accuracy. This article has sections full of old information and assumptions that have been recently debunked (in the last five years or so). The theory of ejected satellite material being the composition of Jupiter's rings has been thrown out with recent scholarships. —ExplorerCDT 19:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: Picture placement is largely an aesthetic preference. If the images are causing white space, that's a problem, but left/right/left/right is a perfectly sensible picture arrangement and should not be an actionable objection in my view. Further, ISBNs and ISSNs have never been required by the FAC criteria, nor should they be. If you feel strongly that they be included, by all means, add them, of course. -- BrianSmithson 02:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
      • ISBNs and ISSNs are required as part of varifiability. The more accurate the source information the better. Leaving things out when they're reasonable to find is bad. Jay32183 03:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I wouldn't mind the left-right-left-right if the images were properly balanced with the article. Instead, it jars back and forth and screws up the article balance. ISBNs and ISSNs are part of full citations and as Jay32183 said, help with verifiability. Fix it, don't make excuses. Excuses keep this article from becoming an FA. —ExplorerCDT 03:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Again, y'all are entitled to your opinions, but the image arrangement looks perfectly fine from my browser. The ISBN/ISSN thing is a larger issue than this one FAC, so I won't say more on that. But I'm not the nominator, just a commentator, and will not be making any changes on this article in pursuit of FA status. -- BrianSmithson 04:30, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
          • Reply. As to ISBNs, I think that since they're publishing information, they are required by the demand for a "complete citation" in WP:CITE, and for articles demanding higher quality, they should be demanded here. As to your objection about images: NOT all users use your preferences or your resolution or your other browser settings. When you look at it through a variety of settings, this article does not accommodate all users simply because its formatting and other things (like image placement) throw off the balance. FACs should accommodate the reader, not the writer, and that's the spirit of the relevant policies and guidelines in the MoS and other usage policies. If you want to deem this as "unactionable" this FAC will fail for not living up to criteria 2, since you're ignoring parts of the MoS and other relevant policies. —ExplorerCDT 05:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
            • Please reread what I wrote and check the names of the nominator and authors of the Jupiter article. I am not involved with this article or FAC except for my trying to argue against some silly objections. -- BrianSmithson 06:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
              • But the point was that your argument was worng and the objections are valid. Whether you do the work doesn't matter, the work needs to be done. Jay32183 06:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
                • We can "is not"/"is so" all day long, so I think I'll drop the issue (though I stand by my comments). I will report that from home, I do notice some white-space issues toward the bottom of the article in the sections "Natural satellites" and "Classification of Jupiter's moons". Left/right/left/right is A-OK, but white space, you are right, should best be avoided. — BrianSmithson 09:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - Diez2, I also find it troubling that you changed the rating of this article from GA to A at the same time you nominated it. As you are the nominator of this article, that seems a conflict of interest to me. Jeffpw 23:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object — The article compares fairly somewhat favorably to Venus IMO, an FA. However this article only has minimal coverage on the topic of interior models. It fails completely to explain Jupiter's most noticeable aspect: the colors of it multi-hued bands. Several of the sub-sections under "Exploration of Jupiter" spend as much time discussing the missions as they do the discoveries. (I think these could be readily merged into a single section about "Fly-by missions", and still provide sufficient coverage.) Finally there's the issue of the missing citations. But otherwise I think it's 90+% of the way to becoming an FA. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 23:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I note that this article has now also been requested for Peer Review, with the comment that "the article almost instantly became a GA, but failed horribly in the nomination for FA. I was wondering how to improve this article for FA status." may I suggest that either the peer review or this nomination be withdrawn? These sort of multiple reviews are both time consuming and a cause of confusion for editors in general. I would also add that since this article was nominated less than 24 hours ago, it is a bit hasty to conclude that it has "failed horribly". Jeffpw 16:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Some good work done here, but I object for now.

• TOC is overwhelming in Exploration section. Why doesn't Exploration of Jupiter yet exist?
• Prose is often clunky. Some examples:
  • "It is 318 times more massive than Earth, with a diameter 11 times that of Earth, and its volume is 1300 times as great as that of Earth." I'm sure this can be written without repeating Earth three times.
  • A few problems with the next sentence: "Quite naturally, Jupiter's gravitational influence has dominated the evolution of the solar system." Abverbial phrases like "quite naturally" are almost always fluff outside of personal writing. The statement is also incorrect: "Excepting the Sun, Jupiter's gravitational influence..."
  • Chop the following snake apart: "However, even before Voyager proved that the feature was a storm, there was strong evidence that the spot cannot be associated with any deeper feature on the planet's surface, as it has been proven that the Spot rotates differentially with respect to the rest of the atmosphere, sometimes faster and sometimes more slowly, so that during its recorded history it has traveled several times around the planet with regard to any possible fixed rotational marker below it."
• Finally, the already mentioned issue of citations (1c). Marskell 17:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I started an "Exploration of" page with a cut-and-paste. Fill that one out and then reduce this one and we're on our way. I'll work away on it myself. Marskell 17:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Neutral - needs unsourced statements fixed before sliding over to support... Kamope · talk · contributions 12:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• COMMENT. I am rather astonished that after a week almost none of my criticisms and suggestions made above with regard to my objection have been addressed. My objection is now "strenuously" lodged. —ExplorerCDT 13:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• I wouldn't be so astonished. It's the nature of FAC that some get dropped by nominators. This'll likely get removed soon, and then we can see who's willing to work to bring it back here. Marskell 20:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not the FAC nominator, but I have an interest in seeing this article improved in quality. So your comments are appreciated and I've been trying to address them as time permits. (As have others, it appears.) Likely this will be brought back as a FAC in the future once the issues are addressed. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 17:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I noticed your work, RJH. One thought I had was to edit out the "Overview" section. I think these sections are rarely necessary. Marskell 06:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.